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Freshservice for MSP TABLE OF CONTENTS
- At a glance
- 1. Before you switch
- 2. What happens when you switch
- 3. How Freshservice protects your existing setup
- 4. After the switch
You can switch your Freshservice for Business Teams Pro subscription to Freshservice Pro/Enterprise plan when you want to onboard your IT team and use ITSM-specific capabilities. The switch adds an IT workspace to your account and changes how licenses, permissions, ticket routing, and some account-wide settings work.
If you are onboarding only business teams, you can continue adding them to Freshservice for Business Teams Pro. If you need to onboard your IT team, we recommend switching to Freshservice Pro or Enterprise so that your IT and business teams can work in the same account.
Important: The plan change is permanent. You can switch only to a Freshservice ITSM Pro or Enterprise plan. Switching to the Starter or Growth plan is not supported. After you switch, you cannot switch back to Freshservice for Business Teams Pro. You must maintain at least one IT license, and you cannot delete the IT workspace created during the switch.
At a glance
1. Before you switch
Review licenses and permissions
When you switch to Freshservice Pro or Enterprise, you can use a combination of Freshservice IT licenses and Business Agent licenses, or assign Freshservice IT licenses to all agents. The license each agent needs depends on their responsibilities and the permissions they must retain after the switch.
Determine the minimum IT license count
The minimum number of IT licenses you need depends on the users who require IT-specific or account-wide access after the switch.
Each member of the IT team you plan to onboard requires an IT license.
If your existing account is a multi-workspace account, agents who need to retain account-wide permissions require IT licenses.
If your existing account is a single-workspace account, users with the Play God permission require IT licenses after the switch.
For single-workspace accounts, consider the following changes:
The switch converts the account to a multi-workspace setup and introduces Global Settings, where you manage capabilities such as user management and billing.
Business Agents retain access to some Global Settings capabilities. These include view access to agents, requesters, requester groups, roles, and departments, as well as configuration access for Journeys.
Existing agents who need to manage capabilities that move to Global Settings and are unavailable to Business Agents require IT licenses.
Some capabilities, such as forms and workflows, are available in both Global Settings and workspace settings. Business Agents can manage these capabilities only within workspace settings. IT agents can manage them at both the workspace and global levels. Consider the level of access each agent needs when determining the required number of IT licenses.
You can sign up for a Freshservice trial account to review the capabilities available under Global Settings before deciding which users need IT licenses.
Agents who work only in business workspaces, such as HR or Facilities, can continue using Business Agent licenses unless they also need access to the IT workspace or account-wide administrative capabilities.
Determine the minimum Business Agent license count
The minimum number of Business Agent licenses you need depends on the agents who will continue working only in business workspaces after the switch and do not require IT licenses.
This typically includes agents who:
Work on tickets and other data in business workspaces, such as HR or Facilities.
Administer business workspaces without requiring broader account-wide administrative access.
Business Agent licenses continue to support permissions within business workspaces. However, they do not provide access to managing agent availability because this is treated as an account-wide capability, even when the permission is granted within a workspace.
Tip: Review administrative permissions before purchasing licenses. If an account-wide administrator no longer needs those permissions, remove them or convert them to occasional agents to reduce the number of IT licenses required.
Confirm the required license count
Freshservice validates license requirements when you execute the subscription change. Review the required IT and Business Agent licenses before the change takes effect to ensure that users can continue accessing the product as expected.
If the number of IT licenses you purchase is below the minimum required and the number of Business Agent licenses is also below the minimum required, you will be billed separately for the additional licenses. To avoid these additional charges, convert excess agents to occasional agents or remove them.
This also applies when you increase the total license count but increase the number of IT licenses while reducing the number of Business Agent licenses. Freshservice always validates the minimum number of IT and Business Agent licenses required. In this situation, you can convert users to occasional agents and use day passes for them to avoid being billed for additional licenses.
Converting agents to occasional agents does not affect your data. However, these agents will need day passes to access the account.
Plan a change window
The plan change adds a new workspace and, if you are moving from a single-workspace setup, introduces Global Settings. Schedule a change window so that you can review the new setup and update the configuration as needed before making it broadly available.
Review configurations and flows that may be affected
Before switching, identify the areas that depend on the primary workspace or ticket-routing behavior. Review the following:
Whether the Workspace/Issue related to field is currently displayed to requesters on the ticket form.
Whether you use Servicebot in Slack or Microsoft Teams.
The email address you want to use for global emails after the switch.
Marketplace apps that create entities in, or pull data from or push data to, the primary workspace.
Initiate the switch
You can initiate the plan change from Plans and Billing in your account. You can also contact your account manager or Freshservice Support at support@freshservice.com.
2. What happens when you switch
Freshservice automatically creates an IT workspace using the IT template and sets it as the primary workspace because ITSM plans require an IT workspace to be primary.
Freshservice applies the following safeguards to the new IT workspace:
Seeded configurations remain in draft or disabled states. For example, service items remain in draft, and automations remain disabled.
Nothing from the new IT workspace is published or made visible in the support portal.
Access to the new workspace is restricted. Only Play God administrators are explicitly added to the new IT workspace with the Workspace Admin and IT Supervisor roles. Only these administrators can submit tickets to the IT workspace, allowing them to test ticket creation. Other agents in the account cannot see this workspace. You can test this behavior in a Freshservice for Business Teams trial account.
Note: You cannot delete the IT workspace or replace it with a business workspace as the primary workspace.3. How Freshservice protects your existing setup
In a multi-workspace account, tickets normally route to the primary workspace when the workspace field is hidden from requesters on the ticket form.
Because the new IT workspace becomes the primary workspace after the switch, Freshservice adds business rules to prevent new tickets from being routed to it.
If the workspace field is visible to requesters, the new IT workspace would otherwise become visible automatically. Freshservice applies business rules to keep the workspace hidden until it is ready.
If the Workspace field is displayed to requesters on the ticket form
Freshservice adds business rules that hide the new IT workspace from requesters and from agents who are not account-wide administrators.
The workspace is hidden from both the Create and Move forms so that users do not unintentionally create or move tickets to it before it is configured.
After the IT workspace is ready, you can delete these business rules.
The business rules are named:
Hide IT workspace from ticket form from agents (system rule created during plan change)
Hide IT workspace from ticket form from requesters (system rule created during plan change)
If the Workspace field is hidden from requesters
Freshservice enables the workspace field for requesters and applies business rules to preserve the existing requester experience.
The requester portal continues to load the form from the workspace that was previously the primary workspace.
The IT workspace is hidden from the Create and Move forms for agents who are not account-wide administrators.
These business rules are temporary. After you configure the IT workspace and review your ticket-routing requirements, you can delete them.
The business rules are named:
Hide IT workspace from Move Form (system rule created during plan change)
Load '{workspace name}' form on requester portal (system rule created during plan change)
The workspace name in the second rule refers to the name of the previous primary workspace.
If you use Servicebot
Requesters can complete forms directly in Slack or Microsoft Teams through Servicebot and submit tickets.
However, business rules do not apply to forms completed through these integrations.
To prevent requesters from accessing the new IT workspace through these forms, Freshservice enables the Show simplified form setting. This setting redirects requesters to the support portal, where the business rules can be applied to the ticket form.
You can disable this setting after the IT workspace is ready.
4. After the switch
Configure and test the IT workspace
Configure the workspace for your IT team and test ticket creation before making the workspace broadly available.
You must disable or delete the business rules added during the account switch to make the IT workspace available for ticket submission.
Test ticket routing
Confirm that ticket creation by requesters and agents behaves as expected.
Review Servicebot behavior
If you use Servicebot, review whether you still need to redirect requesters to the support portal. You can disable the redirect after the IT workspace is ready.
Review global email behavior
The primary workspace determines the email address used for global emails. Because the new IT workspace becomes the primary workspace, global emails, including activation emails and other emails configured through Global Settings, are sent from the primary email address configured in the IT workspace.
The IT workspace is created with a default Freshservice email address. Replace this address with a company email address so that global emails are sent from your company email address.
You cannot use the email address from your current primary workspace for this purpose because an email address can be added to only one workspace at a time.
Review Marketplace app behavior
Changing the primary workspace can affect Marketplace apps that operate only in the account's primary workspace.
If an app creates entities in, or pulls data from or pushes data to, the primary workspace, it may start operating in the new IT workspace after the switch.
If you are unsure whether a specific app will be affected, contact Freshservice Support to verify its behavior.